Subaltern Agroecological Knowledge and Environmental Justice in the New South Africa: Farm Worker Insights and Land Reform in the Western Cape Province

自1994年白人少数统治结束以来，南非开始了一项宏大的实验，以解决过去的不公正。在种族隔离时期的一系列种族主义和歧视性政策中，有一项是正式限制非白人在家园或班图斯坦之外拥有农场土地。非国大政府的竞选承诺之一是通过土地归还和土地再分配（统称为土地改革）来纠正农业部门歧视性土地所有权政策的遗留问题。商业农场工人（包括长期和季节性劳工）是南非社会中最贫穷的群体之一。考虑到这个群体的贫困和农业背景，他们似乎是土地再分配努力的一个合乎逻辑的目标群体。本研究项目的目标是：1)探索南非西开普省斯沃特兰自然地区农场工人关于农业景观及其管理的次要（或压抑）知识；2)研究这些见解在多大程度上可以用于可持续的土地再分配。这些目标将通过与白人农场主、永久农场工人和土地再分配受益者的一系列半结构化访谈来探讨。PI还将分析航空摄影的时间序列（1960年至今），以验证对景观变化的看法，对土地再分配项目进行经济分析，以了解其财务可行性，并进行能源产出-投入分析，以及农业实践的清单和评估，以确定土地再分配倡议的生态可持续性。该研究项目在概念上涉及两个很少联系的调查领域，即下层知识和土地改革，并采用了多种研究方法。这项研究是在南非土地改革进程的关键时刻进行的，直接影响到当前关于土地改革的速度、目标、组织和可持续性的辩论。了解永久农场工人的农业生态知识，以及它对土地管理决策的影响程度，是重新审视种族隔离政权的景观和农业叙述的关键的第一步。此外，如果PI发现，将基层农业生态知识特别纳入土地再分配项目，会导致更具经济可行性和生态可持续性的举措，这样的发现将验证当地知识在土地改革过程中的重要性，并使农场工人更积极地参与土地再分配计划，并对其提出更大的要求。最后，在短期内，生态上可持续的土地再分配工作不一定是最有利可图的。这一发现将为目前关于土地再分配目标的辩论提供信息（就商业、生计、混合农业企业的优先次序而言）。

Since the end of white minority rule in 1994, South Africa has embarked on a grand experiment to address past injustices. Among a wide range of racist and discriminatory policies during the Apartheid era were formal restrictions on the ownership of farm land by non-whites outside of the homelands or Bantustands. One of the campaign promises of the ANC government was to redress the legacy of discriminatory land ownership policies in the farming sector through land restitution and land redistribution (collectively known as land reform). The commercial farm worker population (including permanent and seasonal laborers) is one of the poorest segments of the South African society. Given this group's poverty and background in farming, they would appear to be a logical target group for land redistribution efforts. The objectives of this research project are to 1) explore the subaltern (or repressed) knowledge of farm workers regarding agricultural landscapes and their management in the Swartland natural region of the Western Cape Province in South Africa; and 2) to examine the extent to which these insights could be leveraged for sustainable land redistribution. These objectives will be explored via a series of semi-structured interviews with white farm owners, permanent farm workers and land redistribution beneficiaries. The PI also will analyze a time series of aerial photography (1960 - present) to validate perceptions of landscape change, perform an economic analysis of land redistribution projects to understand their financial viability, and undertake an energy output-input analysis, as well as an inventory and assessment of farming practices, to determine the ecological sustainability of land redistribution initiatives. The research project conceptually relates two rarely linked fields of inquiry, subaltern knowledge and land reform, and employs a mix of research methodologies.This research comes at a critical juncture in South Africa's land reform process and bears directly on current debates concerning the pace, objectives, organization, and sustainability of land reform. Understanding the agroecological knowledge of permanent farm workers, and the extent to which it influences (or has influenced) land management decisions, is a critical first step in re-examining the landscape and farming narratives of the Apartheid regime. Furthermore, should the PI find that the ad hoc incorporation of subaltern agroecological knowledge into land redistribution projects has led to more economically viable and ecologically sustainable initiatives, such a finding would validate the importance of local knowledge in the land reform process and empower farm workers to more actively engage with, and make greater demands upon, land redistribution initiatives. Finally, it is possible that ecologically sustainable land redistribution efforts are not necessarily the most profitable in the short term. Such a finding would inform the current debate on the objectives of land redistribution (in terms of a priority on commercial vs. subsistence vs. mixed farming enterprises).